You’ve Come a Long Way

I’ve been wanting to do a Garden Art project that I’ve seen on Pinterest…

Literary Garden Sign

A few months ago I had shown the Pinterest pin to my Mom who remarked how it would be great to do one for all the places they’ve visited… This traveling in and of itself is significant. She and my Dad were born and raised just outside of Philadelphia to working class families. Neither had money nor a college education. But my Dad worked. A lot. We moved from the Philly area to North Jersey when I was 4 (something people in Philly tend not to do–move away–ever… at least not people in our extended family). And my Dad commuted 60 miles each way from our rural town in Northern NJ to his job. He went from working in the warehouse to customer service to management. The family moved back to the Philly area when I was in college and then to Austin, TX for Dad’s job with Dell, for whom he’s now a Director. His job has taken him all over the world; most notable are the two stints he and my Mom have had as expats, living in Xiamen, China and Adare, Ireland.

And then the other day someone posted a comment on a FaceBook picture of my Dad:

And that’s how I came to this Creative Solutionas a gift for my parents.

I used scrap wood that my husband cut into various size rectangles and painted a base coat with some white latex we had in the house.

I painted each sign in a different acrylic color… it needed to be light enough to properly display the location.

I used their physical address as the starting point and calculated the distance between their current house and each of their former homes. Google Maps couldn’t give me driving directions to Ireland or China, so I used www.distancefromto.net and plugged in as much info as I could. I never remembered Dad’s address in Yeadon, but I knew the street. And my sister was quick to inform me that I remembered our address in Limerick incorrectly (I thought it was 162… it was 161… but I did recall the street name). Keeping it a surprise was worth it, though!